Hammer blow for Sleaford Town in promotion chase

​It means that with two games to play, the Greens are five points behind second-placed Loughborough Students who have a game to play.

One of those remaining games for Sleaford is on Tuesday night (18th) at league leaders Anstey Nomads, who need just a point to secure the title. Sleaford then host Newark & Sherwood on Saturday on a day when the club will host a series of celebrations to mark its centenary.

Quorn prevailed thanks to a hat-trick from Paddy Webb on Saturday, his first goal cancelled when the Greens got level after fine work from Jacob Fenton saw him set-up Rodrigo Goncalves who found the bottom corner expertly from range.

But Webb scored twice more in the second-half to seal his side the points, the first – like his second – from a Silvio Bello cross that he tapped home beyond the outstretched dive of Liam Flitton.

Webb was then the man on hand to make the points safe in the fifth minute of stoppage time when he turned his man and finished coolly into the bottom corner beyond Flitton to make it 3-1.

Player/manager Tom Ward was disappointed to see the Greens’ long unbeaten run come to an end but was still keen to note the bigger picture, despite defeat.

He said: “It’s never nice to lose to big rivals, but I’m really proud we’ve put ourselves in this position. It doesn’t soften the blow today but we’ve now got two more massive games and a semi-final to look forward to. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing and see where we land.

“I think we could have done better. The goal at the end flatters them because it was a very close game. The difference today was probably the quality of Webb. He was a handful all game – three chances, three goals and that’s the difference.”

For Ward now it is all about picking his troops up for the final week of the campaign.

“We’re deflated now. But we’ll pick ourselves up again and we’ve got another good test on Tuesday and if you want to get promoted you’ve got to beat these teams so let’s see how we do.”